Franklin posted his own video on Instagram of the aftermath, saying he and his girlfriend had "barely made it out". Given the unsafe scenario, a man who raced his vehicle down a hill to escape a mudslide counts himself lucky to have made it out alive.

Dallas native Desionne Franklin told KTLA he'd never experienced anything like the deluge that hit the home where he is staying in Burbank.

With his girlfriend screaming at the top of her lungs, Franklin managed to get some traction and maneuver the auto to the bottom of the hill, where several other smashed-up vehicles had come to rest after similar journeys.

"I got out, pat the bumper a little in the back, put it back in place and kept going", he said. "I told my girlfriend, 'Hey, I don't know what's happening, but we've got to get ready to go'". He praised the vehicle for how it handled the mud and helped him and his girlfriend survive without serious injury.

Givens said they were hydroplaning.

The region's natural beauty and easy access to Los Angeles to the southeast have long attracted the rich and powerful, including television personality Oprah Winfrey, former tennis star Jimmy Connors, talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and actor Jeff Bridges.

It's hard to wrap your brain around the devastation that has befallen Santa Barbara County in California in the wake of the one-two punch of massive wildfires followed by rainfall that triggered widespread mudslides.

Crews on Friday continued to dig through the muck and rubble to look for more people. Neighborhoods below burn area are more susceptible to flooding because vegetation that would normally help absorb rain is stripped away by the fire.